1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device, an image forming method, and an image forming program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is an image forming device capable of using continuous paper (including roll paper) as a recording medium. In such image forming device, when the continuous paper is conveyed to a position of an image forming unit, a toner image formed by the image forming unit is transferred to the continuous paper. Thereafter, the continuous paper is wound in a roll shape through a fixing device and a post-processing device to be stopped.
The image forming device conveys the continuous paper after the toner image is transferred to the continuous paper until conveyance of the continuous paper is stopped. It might take a long time of several tens of seconds or longer for an operation to convey the continuous paper depending on a configuration of the image forming device.
On the other hand, in a general image forming device, an image quality adjusting operation for adjusting image quality such as to create a toner band or to form a patch is performed. Such image quality adjusting operation is often performed when printing is started. There also is the image forming device which performs the image quality adjusting operation while the image forming device is idle or to perform the same with an increased gap between the images continuously printed on the continuous paper (refer to JP 2006-84796 A, for example).
In the conventional image forming device, another process is not accepted while the continuous paper is conveyed or the image quality adjusting operation is performed, so that system stopping time (down-time) becomes longer and productivity is deteriorated. Especially, when the image quality adjusting operation is performed with the increased gap between the images printed on the continuous paper, the continuous paper is wasted, so that the continuous paper cannot be efficiently used. When all the image quality adjusting operations are performed when the printing is started, the productivity is deteriorated and in addition, an operation based on an instruction from a user is started with delay, so that this gives the user a bad impression.